In another generous blog, Brooke Allen seems to join me in denouncing extremists on both sides—believers who think some others beyond their ranks are “damned,” and unbelievers who think that evangelicals and their like are “insane.” Both sides need to chill out.

Let me come as close to Ms. Allen’s position as I can: I admit that Jefferson, in his private life, is perhaps the least orthodox Christian among the hundred top Founding Fathers, i.e., signers of the Declaration and/or the Constitution, plus a few influential others. But what Jefferson did as a public official is far more important.

In the exhibit “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic” mounted by the Library of Congress (1998), one finds this vignette:

President Jefferson was on his way to church of a Sunday morning with his large red prayer book under his arm when a friend querying him after their mutual good morning said which way are you walking Mr. Jefferson. To which he replied to Church Sir. You going to church Mr. J. You do not believe a word in it. Sir said Mr. J. No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be. The Christian religion is the best religion that has ever been given to man and I as chief Magistrate of this nation am bound to give it the sanction of my example. Good morning Sir. –Rev. Ethan Allen

Note that Jefferson did not deny his private lack of Christian faith. On the other hand, Jefferson also said that a chief magistrate of the United States has a public duty to nurture the Christian religion. It is the public role that is significant for our public life. Jefferson knew he could never be elected if the American people actually saw what he believed in the privacy of his heart. On this point, he lacked integrity.

Even so, Jefferson was eager to save his reputation. In laboring to produce “the Jefferson Bible,” which he later entitled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, he cut out everything but the ethical teachings of Jesus, and removed all claims to divinity.

A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. [To Charles Thomson, January 9, 1816.]

And again:

There will be found remaining [in this abridgement] the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. [To John Adams, October 12, 1813.]

But the issue is not really Jefferson. He was an outlier, at the extreme.

Today, it is not only, or even chiefly, religion that divides the current decade of Americans. It is also tax policy; the war against terrorism, Iraq in particular; the oil companies; national health care; and many other issues. In addition, it is not the religious folks alone who spew “hatred and intolerance.” Leading atheists are calling Christianity a “delusion,” an “evil,” a “destructive force,” and a “poisoner of everything.” This heavy hatred does not exactly invite rational dialogue; it does not even fulfill the first criterion of reasoned conversation, mutual respect.

For instance, who can forget the awful lies and calumnies, the hatred, innuendo, and sheer vituperation that Senator Kennedy threw at Robert Bork, sheerly for purposes of political assassination. It seems to me that the “Enlightened,” the “brights,” have never been so hateful and intolerant in their rhetoric as in the past two decades.

It is true that the “religious right” has also committed some scarlet sins of this type. But it does seem thoroughly inaccurate to give all the credit for sweetness and light to the rationalists.

Again, what does Ms. Allen mean by “humility”? Washington, Witherspoon, Lincoln, and many others linked “humility” to the “Divine Author of our religion.” Even the Virginia Declaration of Rights expressly recalled the “duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.” No true Christian has ever believed that he has been “saved” by any action of her own. On the contrary, each holds it to be a precious and humbling gift. And few figures in all moral history taught meekness and humility as vividly as Jesus Christ, and not only in word but also through the circumstances of his lowly birth and his bloody death.

To Ms. Allen, Christian doctrine sounds inherently “hateful.” But Jewish and Christian faiths hold that individual choice is the axis of human history. And no one can “go to hell” (whatever Ms. Allen imagines by that) without deliberately and reflectively choosing to cut himself off from God, in order to remain forever within the bounds of his own impoverished ego. That lot is thrust upon no one. God offers his friendship freely to all, for their own free choice.

In conclusion, I share Ms. Allen’s passion that readers today experience for themselves the extraordinary religiousness of the founding generation—all one-hundred of the top founders—as compared with most university professors or journalists of today.

I especially encourage careful study of the Congressional and Presidential Decrees, declaring public days of Repentance and Humiliation, and national days of Thanksgiving. Public officials also recommended public worship and religious education for the Northwest territories and many individual states.

I was taught to think that the Americans were materialists, individualists, masons, and not really very Christian. What a false view that was.